The invention relates to an over-center hinge for thin doors of cabinets, especially bathroom mirror cabinets.
Such an over-center hinge has already been proposed (German Offenlegungsschrift No. 2,912,813). It has a flat door-related part articulated to a supporting arm that can be fastened to the supporting walls of the cabinet. The door-related part is susceptible of fastening, preferably by cementing, in a mating recess provided in the inside of the door and open at the edge of the door, and which has a cap mounting projection protruding from the inside of the door. To this projection a molded cap is removably fastened which bears a tongue which is resiliently displaceable against spring force and extends into the path of a contact surface provided on the hinge arm. The contact surface glides on the tongue during a part of the closing movement through a dead-center position on one side of which the tongue exerts on the contact surface of the supporting arm a force acting in the hinge opening direction and on the other side of which it exerts a force acting in the hinge closing direction.
This older hinge, which has proven both functional and reliable, is fastened to the door by cementing its door-related part in a shallow recess in the back of the mirrored door, i.e., by a method which does not allow non-destructive removal. This leads to problems if the mirror doors provided with the hinge are not to be mounted on a corresponding cabinet immediately after cementing, but must first be stored or shipped, because--as is the case in practice--the manufacturer specializing in the production of mirror doors does not equip the mirror doors with the hinges installed in his own plant, but instead delivers the doors and the hinges to manufacturers specializing in the production of the body of mirrored bathroom cabinets, for example. The delicate mirror glass doors must then be put together in bundles for shipment. However, bundling is complicated by the hinges cemented unremovably to the mirror doors, and particularly on account of the linkage mechanism projecting beyond the door from the door-related part of the hinge, and also by the supporting arm of the hinges which is to be fastened to the cabinet carcass. For the solution of this packing and shipping problem, it would be desirable if the hinges or at least their bulky parts which project beyond the profile of the mirror door could be made removable from the door. In the case of conventional hinges for wooden cabinet doors, many different designs are known for constructing the door-related part of a hinge such that it can be applied to the door and removed therefrom quickly and simply, so that, among other things, the doors can be bundled together for shipment more easily due to the possibility of removing the hinges. One of the design possibilities that is utilized is the division of the door-related part of the hinge into an external mounting part to be permanently attached to the door, and a link holder which is easily removable from this mounting part. Reference is made in this connection, by way of example, to DE-AS No. 1,559,940, DE-OS No. 1,559,900 and DE-OS No. 1,904,781 as well as DE-OS No. 2,143,672, which relate to furniture hinges with two-part door-related hinge parts.
In the case of the mirror cabinet doors with which the invention is concerned, the division of the already very shallow door-related member into two pieces which can be separated or joined together at will is much more difficult to design than in the case of the known hinges, inasmuch as mirror cabinet doors, in spite of their lesser thickness in comparison with wood doors, have a great weight, which would necessitate a strong joining together of the two parts of the door-related member.
It is therefore the object of the invention to improve the above-mentioned older mirrored cabinet over-center hinge such that the difficulties explained above in regard to packing and shipment of mirrored cabinet doors provided with pre-installed hinges will be eliminated.